Bachata, the innocent poster, and XO, the professor, are wrong this time: Trujillo was a tyrant and kept his $$$ in Swiss banks. And yes, some folks cried when he got killed. They cried in North Korea, too, when Dear Leader gave up the ghost.

Too bad there's no hell.

If he would have kept all his money in Swiss banks, the state's enterprises wouodn't have been as valuable as they were at the time he was assassinated. Have any doubts? Just ask the Bonettis, which were among the ones to get a piece of that pie. Or better yet, ask the ones in charge of the sale of the remaining carcass during the first mandate of Leonel's. You and Meemselle might complain all you want, but el taita Pedro Santana was very right when he said that democracy was an impossible utopia in a country like this, and our current reality is all the proof needed for the assertion.

He was a horrible, horrible man and his legacy of murder and graft set the stage for the DR we know today.

I think you are being too soft with the so called political class of this country that both preceeded succeeded him in power. One only needs to put side by side the administrations of Horacio Vasquez and the ones of the PLD and they are practically the same, with perhaps the sole difference that Horacio was more kept financially on a leash by the Yanks, which were still on the island at the time (on the Haitian part). Outside that, they are a mirror image of each other. And there's another newsflash for you: the so called antitrujillistas have ended up costing the country more than Trujillo ever did. Case in point: Antonio Imbert Barrera, both during and after the 65' civil war and eventual Yankee occupation. Just go to Santo Domingo Norte or any barrio north of JFK avenue and dare proclaim your admiration for the man, and see how the locals treat you.

The allegation was that Trujillo "set the stage" for future corruption. Trujillo was corrupt, and those that followed him were also corrupt.

The country is far more prosperous now than it was in 1961. There is more to steal.
When Trujillo was in power, few dared to start a business that competed with his many businesses.

That's why I mentioned both the political class before and after him, genius. Trujillo's regime can't be studied in a vacuum, but by analyzing the conditions that allowed him to take power and the ones that resulted after him, and it's safe to say that the political class didn't learn the lesson.

The prosperous part can be disputed, specially since there can't be one sole breadwinner in a househood like it used to be back then, but this is a worldwide condition. What defeats your claim, though, is that the chasm between the haves and have nots have grown wider, and that a peso now buys a lot less than in 1961, despite the country being the one that grew up economically the most in Latin American during the last half century. But obviously, I seem to favor measuring prosperity by how well the people live (or not), while you seem to favor the resources approach alone.

Read In the Time of the Butterflies to understand what living in Trujillo's DR was like for intelligent women. Trujillo and Cuba's Batista were ruthless, corrupt dictators, and the U.S. replaced Trujillo with Balaguer to ensure the revolution was defeated in the DR. Gotta love a country that accepts a blind aging American puppet to preserve the corruption and oligarchy. But hey, if you hate Haitians, you'll love the idea that Trujillo massacred many thousands of them.

But hey, if you hate Haitians, you'll love the idea that Trujillo massacred many thousands of them.

But you bleeding hearts always love to ignore the fact that the country was forced to cede the Central Plateau as compensation, or the fact that the Haitian governing elites also received a monetary sum for the event. I guess they can do no wrong in your eyes...

Seeing the devastated state that region is at the moment, I guess many of the inhabitants of the place are wishing their departement to have remained under Dominican jurisdiction ever since. Anything is preferrable to the libertardian fantasy of "no state" the zone is living at the moment.

Better to have no hearts than to have no brains to be capable of discerning through the hypocrisy of some people, to whom Haitian lives only matter when the Dominican pendejos are the ones to take it. When the case is Americans, Euros, or even themselves being the victimizers, noooooooo, pa' lante, down with nigs, everything else be damned.

That's why I mentioned both the political class before and after him, genius. Trujillo's regime can't be studied in a vacuum, but by analyzing the conditions that allowed him to take power and the ones that resulted after him, and it's safe to say that the political class didn't learn the lesson.

The prosperous part can be disputed, specially since there can't be one sole breadwinner in a househood like it used to be back then, but this is a worldwide condition. What defeats your claim, though, is that the chasm between the haves and have nots have grown wider, and that a peso now buys a lot less than in 1961, despite the country being the one that grew up economically the most in Latin American during the last half century. But obviously, I seem to favor measuring prosperity by how well the people live (or not), while you seem to favor the resources approach alone.

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Jeez, I was agreeing with you. There were a lot of desperately poor Dominicans then, and there still are a lot of them. The population has increased fivefold, and the poor seem to be the ones that reproduce the most.
I have no idea what you think my incorrect position is. Or was.